Google’s global chief for Energy Market Development will on Tuesday (9 April) meet with senior European Commission officials to stress the importance of data access in the digital transformation of the energy sector, as stricter EU rules entered into force last December.

A proposed ePrivacy regulation currently under discussion at EU level would hurt new business models in the clean energy sector, which are “almost all” based on the collection and treatment of data by home equipment and smart meters, warns an industry coalition.

After weeks of back-and-forth between the European Parliament and Facebook executives, CEO Mark Zuckerberg agreed on Wednesday (16 May) to meet with political leaders in Brussels over the company’s recent data breach scandal.

The European Commission is amping up pressure on EU leaders to approve a controversial privacy bill, deadlocked in legal talks for more than a year, after the data breach scandal involving Facebook and Cambridge Analytica.

The EU needs more legal safeguards to prevent massive privacy breaches like the current scandal over Facebook and British political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica, MEPs from different political parties argued on Wednesday (18 April).

With the recent revelations on the unlawful use of voters’ data to influence their choices, both the EU and its member states need to take legislative measures to prevent such campaigning which violated privacy rights and eroded democracy. The first step should be ending the lack of transparency, writes Nomi Byström.

Facebook users “need to know what happened with their data” following reports over a week ago that millions of profiles on the social media platform were secretly used to help political campaigns, EU Digital Commissioner Mariya Gabriel said.

Privacy regulators from across the EU should join together to investigate allegations that London-based firm Cambridge Analytica illegally analysed millions of Facebook users’ data, the EU’s top data protection watchdog has said.

Europe’s powerful data protection regulators are banding together to coordinate how they investigate and sanction misbehaving companies before a major overhaul of the bloc’s privacy law takes effect in May.

All EU countries except Germany and Austria are unprepared for a major overhaul of the bloc’s privacy rules that will go into effect in May. The European Commission is amping up pressure on the 26 member states that are lagging behind.

Different political groups need to accept the European Parliament’s agreement on the draft ePrivacy regulation, even though conservative and centre-right MEPs opposed the bill, Birgit Sippel said in an interview with EURACTIV.com.

The European Commission hopes to set an international standard with its upcoming proposal to give police easier access to data from tech companies, and has already asked the United States to cooperate.

MEPs in the European Parliament’s Civil Liberties Committee (LIBE) approved stricter new privacy rules for telecoms services and apps like WhatsApp and Skype that divided political groups and drew backlash from the telecoms and tech industries.

Linda Cogruedo Steneberg, Director at the the European Commission's DG Connect , revealed how the EU executive is trying to extend broadband coverage and democratise the internet, as well as protecting our privacy as hacker attacks become more commonplace. EURACTIV Spain reports.